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The Final Station Review

The Final Station is a post-apocalyptic adventure where you travel across a dying world by train, picking up supplies and survivors along the way, as you maintain your train and fend off infected. Is The Final Station a train worth climbing aboard? Read our review below to find out..

Dev: Do My Best

Pub: tinyBuild

Release Date: 2/9/16

PEGI Rating: 12

Players: 1

Download size: 1.5 GB

Genre: Action Adventure

Price: £11.99

The Final Station places the player in the role of a railway conductor after an infection has turned the majority of the world into what we can assume are zombies. It mixes side-scrolling combat, exploration and survival elements into its linear levels surprisingly well. While progressing through the game’s story the player must also keep performing maintenance on the train; as well as that they must also take care of survivors which they come across at each stop.

Two main sections make up The Final Station. Travelling and maintenance onboard the train and exploration with resource gathering. Both of these focus on survival and story. When exploring the different stops as you progress you will find individual stories for characters and the area which you have stopped, adding more depth to the world and making each area interesting with its own story to tell.

This also applies to the NPCs which you can bring onboard the train. When in the carriage with the passengers you can eavesdrop on conversations and get info about them or individual stories. As well as this it is possible to interact with characters via a console on the train. The train sections of the game get repetitive quick with the only changes being the different puzzle occasionally. However, the real variety comes from exploring each stop.

Exploring each stop takes up the majority of the game with the journey on the train taking up a much smaller section. The exploration also involves combat as well as just looking around. The player will find themselves using a variety of weapons which can be upgraded to defeat different kinds of infected in order to find supplies and the code to allow their train to leave the station.

The combat in the game is fun and requires plenty of thinking and strategy, especially at times when resources are scarce. The only downside to all of it is the checkpoints are very forgiving, with a new one after almost every fight. One of the unforgiving elements in the game though is how easy it is to start losing survivors onbaord your train when trying to multitask and if you aren’t managing time effectively. It really gets players thinking on their feet and having to manage time and resources effectively.

The visuals use a very simplistic style, focused on black, grey and white with only key people and items being in colour. It really gives the feeling of a dying, or already dead world with the living being the only things worth highlighting which works extremely well. The same goes for the soundtrack when it is being used. Sadly a lot of the game is almost completely silent with not even any ambient music which was a shame really because the rest of the soundtrack works great.

A download code was provided for this review by the developer/publisher

8100

Gameplay9.5

Graphics8.5

Audio6

Replay Value7.5

Value for Money8.5

The Final Station

Summary:
The Final Station offers a solid experience with fun exploration, combat, survival and storytelling elements even if it does feel overly forgiving or even punishing at times. It rewards clever resource management and despite the lack of sound for a lot of the game, the gameplay itself and the well done visual style and environment manage to keep players interested to go through to the end. A nice little game that could’ve done with that little bit more but worth it nonetheless.